Chattahoochee River

The 1900 Federal Census places William John Dean, his wife Mattie, and their growing family in the Huguley Mill community of Chambers County, Alabama.

Their home stood only a short distance from the Chattahoochee River, where the textile industry had transformed a once-rural landscape into one of the South's busiest manufacturing centers.

As the Dean children came of age, many would eventually find employment in the same mills whose existence depended upon the river's waters.